I am a software developer at IBM, working on Tivoli Storage Manager and Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager. In the course of my work, I encounter many interesting problems and their innovative solutions. Periodically, I would like to share some of these...

A lot was announced this week, so I decided to break it up into several separate posts. This is part 3 in my 3-part series, focusing on our Tivoli Storage products.
To read the rest of the series, see:
[ Part 1-Enterprise Systems: DS8000, TS7700 and XIV...

Problem Solving Resources On-line for Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack A compiled list of URL's from our technical support teams containing
documents to aid you in your system administration of TSM FastBack.

After hundreds of discussions with clients and partners of all sizes, I have come to the realization that any IT department of any reasonable size (you can decide what a ‘reasonable size’ actually means) will, over time, leverage both private and public...

The Tivoli Storage Manager development team has recently created a new page within the developerWorks WIKI for Tivoli Storage Manager which consolidates information related to the data deduplication technologies that have been available in TSM since Version...

Every year, I teach hundreds of sellers how to sell IBM storage products. I have been doing this since the late 1990s, and it is one task that has carried forward from one job to another as I transitioned through various roles from development, to marketing,...

Join us on the Tivoli User Community client webcast and opportunity for questions, Tuesday, August 14, 2012 at 11:00 am ET, USA. Reserve Your Webcast Seat Now Overview: This TUC webcast will provide insight and detail in the day-to-day operations and...

After upgrading the Tivoli Storage Manager server from Version 6.1 or
V6.2 to V6.3, it might not be possible to restore the V6.1 or V6.2
database. see: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21605540&lnk=uctug_tivoli_twt_2012-08-01_TSM-DB...

Welcome to the Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager technical support
information update. This communication is designed to help you derive
maximum value from your Storage FlashCopy software by providing the most
up-to-date technical information, answers to...

Welcome to IBM Customer Support for Tivoli Storage Productivity Center
Suite technical support information update.. This communication is
designed to help you derive maximum value from your TPC Suite software
by providing you with helpful e-Support...

Welcome to the Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack technical support
information update. This communication is designed to help you derive
maximum value from your TSM FastBack software by providing the most
up-to-date technical information, answers to...

Welcome to the Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) technical support
information update. This communication is designed to help you derive
maximum value from your TSM software by providing the most up-to-date
technical information, answers to frequently asked...

Tivoli Storage Manager from 6.3 onwards has had a feature called node replication. This brings up a new command called “replicate node”. The only pre-requisite is that you have two TSM servers on version 6.3 or above, and server-to-server communications are...

There is a new white paper available on the IBM Integrated Service Management Library ( ISML ) that explains how to use Tivoli Storage Manager to back up a VMware virtual machine that was deployed by the Workload Deployer in IBM SmartCloud Provisioning version...

If a base snapshot is deleted, the SnapDiff function of the IBM Tivoli Storage
Manager (TSM) client on Windows, AIX, and Linux can miss backups or delete a
previous snapshot. Fixes are available. See here: http://ibm.co/LLLiCp

Recently I was looking at a TSM server, and could see that TSM database backups to tape were working and expiring without issue, however database backups taken to disk were not being removed, and filling up the filesystem. There are three types of backups...

The most powerful thing about TSM is how flexible it can be. There is a way for TSM to meet pretty much any data management requirement. The difficult part is to work out how long you need to keep data for, what rules need to apply. Once you know that setting...

There is a really good article here about how to create JFS2 snapshots in AIX: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-jfs2_snapshot.html This is a good way to get a point in time copy of an AIX filesystem, if your storage system doesn't have the...

There will be a live session held Tuesday June 12 2012 that will provide an overview of the data protection capabilities that IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments brings to IBM SmartCloud Provisioning. Come to learn what we have to offer and...

Are you backing up your AIX systems
over Virtual Ethernet adapters? Of course you are, who isn’t right? Are your
backup server and clients on the same physical POWER system? You are most
likely backing up over Virtual Ethernet to another AIX LPAR that is...

Two
new white papers are available on the IBM Integrated Service Management
Library ( ISML ) that explain how to use Tivoli Storage Manager to back
up different areas within IBM SmartCloud Provisioning. The
first white paper provides information on how...

IBM has detailed innovative projects and research that show new
storage approaches to support Big Data growth and drive business innovation. Healthcare, financial services, media and entertainment, and
scientific research among many industries face the...

Every year I publish a set of storage trends that I believe most clients IT shops can take advantage of, and where technologies exist to help resolve the underlying issue in the IT environment. Here are my thoughts for 2012... 1) Storage
breakthroughs...

I run the TSM Product Family Early Access Programs(EAP) and Beta Programs at IBM and currently we are running an EAP/Beta program for an upcoming release of FlashCopy Manager. We are looking for active participants who would like to learn about this new...

Every year I publish a set of predictions that I think will likely happen in the market space of storage and storage management. Here is my list for 2012.... 1) Storage breakthroughs nipping the “Digital Dark Age” in the bud Since the early 1990’s, an...

If you're in Melbourne (that's Melbourne Australia, not Melbourne Florida) why not come along to the next Australian IBM Tivoli User Group meeting. The subject? Tivoli Storage! The time and date: 10am to 1pm on Friday Nov 25th, 2011 (lunch included!) ....

Tivoli Storage Manager Version 6 first GA'd in 2009 with a new internal database, our highest levels of scalability and availability, and new data reduction features such as deduplication at the source and target. Along the way, we published "Deployment...

IBM had over a dozen storage-related announcements this week. This is my third and final part in my series to provide a quick overview of the announcements.
IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager v6.3 IBM Tivoli Storage Manager is market-leading software that provides...

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Continuing my coverage of the [ IBM System Storage Technical University 2011 ], I participated in the storage free-for-all, which is a long-time tradition, started at SHARE User Group conference, and carried forward to other IT...

This Thursday, June 16, 2011, marks IBM's Centennial 100 year anniversary. It happens to also be my 25th anniversary with IBM Storage. To avoid conflicts in celebrations, we decided to celebrate my induction into the "Quarter Century Club" (QCC)...

Continuing my coverage of the [ IBM Storage Innovation Executive Summit ], that occurred May 9 in New York City, this is my third in a series of blog posts on this event.
During lunch, people were able to take a look at our solutions. Here are Dan Thompson...

Hi fellows… I have been busy for a couple of weeks, and one of the tasks I dealt with was configuring DB2 to target its backups and log archives to TSM. I then thought it would be nice if I shared the related tips and tricks in my blog. Hope it will be useful....

How does one judge a glass of wine? There are a few tests, how it looks, smells and taste are the basic three. But as the wine is poured you may or may not know that your wine is made up of different varieties of grapes. A producer sits down and experiments...

It's Tuesday again, and that means one thing.... IBM Announcements! On the heels of [ last week's announcements ], IBM announced some additional products of interest to storage administrators.
IBM Information Archive Back in 2008, IBM [ unveiled the...

Continuing my coverage of the Data Center 2010 conference, Tuesday morning I attended several sessions. The first was a serious IT discussion with Mazen Rawashdeh, Technology Executive from eBay, and the second was a lighthearted review of the benefits from...

Diamond in the SAN I recently
cloned an LPAR from a P6 to a less-busy P5 server via a mksysb
backup . Unfortunately, after starting up the new LPAR I found that there was an essential directory missing because it had been excluded via the...

Continuing this week's discussion on IBM announcements, today I'll cover our integrated systems.
The problem with spreading out these announcements across several days' worth of blog posts is that others beat you to the punch. Fellow blogger Richard Swain...

Congratulations to my colleague and close friend, Harley Puckett, who celebrated his 25th anniversary of service here at IBM. This is known internally as joining the "Quarter Century Club" or QCC. This is not just a figure of speech, the members of...

Continuing my saga for my [ New Laptop ], I have gotten all my programs operational, and now it is a good time to re-evaluate how I organize my data. You can read my previous posts on this series: [ Day 1 ], [ Day 2 ], [ Day 3 ].
I started my career at IBM...

Well, it feels like Tuesday and you know what that means... "IBM Announcement Day!" Actually, today is Wednesday, but since Monday was Memorial Day holiday here in the USA, my week is day-shifted. Yesterday, IBM announced its latest IBM FlashCopy...

This weekend I was working on moving some of my winter clothes and spring/summer clothes in and out of my closet and into containers. Last Fall I purchased a few plastic containers that sealed so I could put my short sleeve golf shirts away and some of...

It's Tuesday, and that means more IBM announcements!
I haven't even finished blogging about all the other stuff that got announced last week, and here we are with more announcements. Since IBM's big [ Pulse 2010 Conference ] is next week, I thought I would...